Avenging Ron
by quiffed
Summary: Draco resized a certain part of Ron's anatomy. Harry decided to "avenge Ron" by sneaking into the Slytherin dormitories at midnight and hexing Draco into oblivion. Didn't quite go to plan.
1. Avenging Ron: Part One

**Part One**

Harry watches Draco sleeping peacefully in his king-size, four-poster bed. It took a while to find him – the Slytherin quarters, as it turns out, are much larger than the ones belonging to Gryffindor, and in addition, the staircase leading to the sixth-year dormitory has several smaller staircases leading off it, all of which end in store cupboards, dead-ends, bathrooms and extremely painful booby traps. Harry shrugs off the Invisibility Cloak and pulls a coil of barbed wire out of his thumb with his teeth, wincing silently.

_Neville would probably get himself killed here, trying to find his way up to bed at night,_ he muses thoughtfully. _Either that or he'd get hopelessly lost, and we'd find him three days later, living off crumbs and dust._ Harry recalls his bewilderingly long journey up to the bedroom with distaste. _And Slytherins claim they're not paranoid._

Harry ponders which hex to use on Draco. _Furnuculus_ is an old favourite. Or maybe _Densaugeo_, to punish him for the stunt he pulled with Hermione's teeth in fourth year. Harry grins to himself. Maybe he should just dye the stupid poofter's hair lime green and be done with it. For once, Draco's consistently perfect white-blond hair is messed up and scruffy, fanning out onto the pillow like a halo. This is odd. Harry's never seen Draco with so much as a _hair_ out of place before now, and Draco's beauty regime is often the talk of the Gryffindor common room. Ron had even voiced his suspicions that Draco wore a hairnet to bed each night.

The blond boy is curled up like a baby underneath the massive duvet. He keeps making occasional contented noises, and the toes on his left foot, sticking out from the side of the bed, are curling and uncurling themselves.

_At least he doesn't snore_, Harry thinks, relieved. He pulls out his wand from his back pocket and rubs it clean with his sleeve. _Not like Seamus... I haven't had a good night's sleep in weeks. Git._

Draco is smiles softly to himself, and murmurs a sentence in his sleep. Only the words '_give me_' are audible. Harry wonders briefly what he's dreaming about.

_Probably stealing candy from some Muggle babies,_ Harry tells himself, but he's still curious. One other thing he's never seen is Draco giving someone a genuine smile. Not a smirk, or a sneer, or some other expression of amusement at Ron's latest disastrous attempt to get a girl to notice him. Just a _smile_, the kind people give when they're simply happy.

_Draco can't often be happy,_ Harry thinks matter-of-factly. He leans forward to examine Draco's face, then jumps when he sees his sleepy grey-blue eyes fluttering open. _Shit_.

Draco yawns cutely, and rubs his eyelids with a clenched fist. Harry holds his breath, not daring to move. Harry mouths the numbers from one to ten noiselessly, in an attempt to keep himself from panicking. _Mustn't make a sound_. Harry even tries to _think_ in a whisper, which makes his brain hurt, and so he desists.

_Alright,_ Harry says to himself silently whilst edging away from the waking Slytherin,_ just keep quiet and he won't even notice you. He's half-asleep, he'll just think that you're a bad dream. A bad dream. If you don't make a sound, and you keep very still, he'll think that you were just a dream._ Harry edges backwards a little further. Draco is nestling back down into the covers. It doesn't seem like he's going to wake up after all.

"Phew," Harry mumbles unconsciously. Draco's eyes shoot open instantaneously, and they're gazing straight at _him_. There's a few seconds' confusion, during which Draco struggles to focus, and Harry contemplates suicide, but then Draco's grey eyes widen with shock, and Harry knows he's been seen.

_Shit Shit Shit Shit!_

"I'm a dream," Harry blurts out stupidly.

Draco sits up hurriedly, exposing his naked torso. Harry stares at Draco's chest idiotically.

_Who'd have known? Malfoy has a chest!_ Harry is panicking, and whenever Harry panics, he has the oddest thoughts. He can't help it. _That place the git bought on the Slytherin Quidditch team must have really paid off. Look, there's a six-pack and everything!_

"Potter," Draco hisses vehemently. Harry reluctantly drags his eyes up to meet Draco's gaze, which is one of concentrated fury.

"Um." Harry nudges his fallen Invisibility Cloak with his toe awkwardly. "Hello."

"What the _fuck_ are you doing in my dorm, Potter?"

"Nothing." This seems like the safest answer.

"_Nothing?_" Draco spits out disbelievingly. "_Nothing?_ You just decided to take a scenic tour of the Slytherin dormitories, at _midnight_, and then you just _happened_ to end up standing beside my bed, aiming your wand at me?"

Draco glares at the wand clenched in Harry's sweaty palm. The dark-haired boy looks down at it in confusion, as if he's forgotten it's there. Harry laughs weakly, and stuffs it back into his pocket with some difficulty.

"Oh, _that_. That was to get you back, you know… for that thing you did to Ron."

"That thing I did to Ron," Draco repeats, breathing heavily. His heartbeat's only just starting to slow down.

"Yes," Harry answers, blushing. He feels incredibly silly and immature all of a sudden. "You know, how you used the _Reducio_ charm on his -"

"Yes, I do know," Draco interrupts tiredly. Harry continues nevertheless, talking desperately, because he feels it's imperative that he _explain_ himself.

"And… and then… he tried to say it was because the showers near the Quidditch pitch had run out of hot water. But by then Creevey had shown up. With his bloody _camera_. And then of course we had to catch him and destroy the camera, otherwise you'd have gotten hold of it and tried to blackmail him by putting it up all around school, and that would be pornographic, wouldn't it, because the pictures _move_, but it's just the sort of thing that you'd do. And then McGonagall showed up, and of course we couldn't tell her _why_ we had to crush the camera, and so she docked points and gave us both detentions, and then we went back to the common room and Ron tried to reverse the _Reducio_ by doing the Engorgement Charm, but that went _horribly, horribly_ wrong, and just as they were taking him off to the hospital wing, he told me I'd better bloody well get you back, and so I came here to hex you while you were sleeping. I wasn't watching you for any other, disgusting reason, I just wanted to you back for the detentions and the points and what you did to Ron's… _thing_. There."

Harry finishes his speech in a rush and takes a deep breath. Draco is staring at him with a supremely annoyed expression on his face.

"Potter."

"Yes?"

"Get the fuck out."

"No."

Draco looks at Harry quizzically. Harry fidgets and looks down at his feet. There is a long, uncomfortable silence. Draco clears his throat loudly, and Harry looks up, startled.

"I'm sorry, were you going to say something?"

"Potter," Draco snarls. "You are un-fucking-believable. First you sneak into my bedroom in the middle of the night, then you try and hex me, then when I wake up you give me this long pathetic spiel about the Weasel's cock and _why_ you're trying to hex me, and then when I tell you to get lost, you won't go. I don't understand you."

"Well," Harry hedges. "The thing is, if I did go, it wouldn't be very noble. Not the kind of thing a good friend does. I'm supposed to – kind of – _avenge_ Ron."

Draco stares at Harry, open-mouthed.

"What… is… your… _problem_? What _is_ it with the whole superhero delusion? What, so the evil Slytherin Man hurt your sidekick Freckle Dude, and now the mighty Lightning Scar Boy has to _avenge_ his faithful companion?"

Harry's own mouth drops open.

"Look, the only reason you're not covered in boils is that I was busy deciding on which curse to use," Harry retorts hotly, pushing his glasses up his nose. "So keep your fat mouth shut."

"So you were _watching_ me, while I was _asleep_? Christ, Potter. You're such a _fag_." Draco scratches his cheek with his manicured fingernails, obviously irritated.

"I am _not_ a fag!" Harry splutters, disbelieving. "If anyone here's a… a homosexual… it's you."

Draco yawns drowsily, and finger-combs his hair. "_How_, exactly, did you come up with _that_?"

"You have manicured nails!" Harry protests, trying not to raise his voice for fear of waking up the other Slytherins. "Your hair's always perfect! You have tailor-made robes. You smell of pear-scented shampoo all the time, you never get dirty, you have loopy handwriting with circles over the I's, you put balm on your lips so that they don't get chapped, and you fly like a _girl_."

"That's because I, Potter, am cultured and civilised. And also because I can _afford_ to get bespoke school uniforms flown in from Switzerland." Draco lies back onto his pillow and surveys Harry with amusement. "What about you? You've got loads of brainless bimbos chasing after you, yet you've _never_ had a girlfriend, you excel at Quidditch, the most homo-erotic sport in _existence_, you befriend _all_ the male teachers – that oaf Hagrid, Professor Lupin, _Moody_… and when you sneak into my dormitory you waste half the time ogling me like some kind of pervert, before realising that you can't actually bring yourself to do anything. It's pathetic."

"Fuck you, Malfoy."

"I bet you'd _love_ to fuck me, Potter," Draco says calmly. "It's not my fault I'm devastatingly attractive."

"You're not attractive," Harry replies automatically, although he knows it's a lie. Draco's no Cedric Diggory, certainly. He's about half an inch shorter than Harry, and the permanent sneer doesn't do much for his features, but still. There are some good points. A long, lean body, perfectly chiselled cheekbones, expressive greyish-bluish eyes and the silkiest blond hair Harry's ever seen on a boy.

_Like a sort of a male Veela,_ Harry thinks involuntarily, then checks himself, alarmed at his thoughts. _I suppose Malfoy is somewhat attractive, if you like boys like that. Which I don't. Because I don't like boys in the first place. Oh, bugger._

"You might be… less than repulsive, actually," Harry admits grudgingly, rocking backwards and forwards on his heels. "But only to girls."

"Wrong," Draco sits up again, and fixes Harry with a particularly piercing stare. "I may be less than repulsive, but only to girls and gay men. Like you."

"What the hell are you trying to do, Malfoy?" Harry asks, exasperated. Draco seems to take delight in infuriating and confusing him, and it's far too early in the morning for Harry to have to deal with this shit.

"What I am trying to do," Draco explains, his eyes flashing dangerously, "is get you out of my dormitory, so that I can go back to sleep without having to worry about you trying to grope or hex me." Draco sits up much straighter and puffs out his chest. "You do _realise_ I could shout at any moment, and wake up everyone else in my house, who I'm sure would give you a _much_ warmer welcome than I have."

"Why _don't_ you shout and wake them up?" Harry inquires boldly. His knees are shaking, for some inexplicable reason. He sits down on the corner of the four-poster and hopes it's due to his outrage at hearing the ludicrous and untrue accusations Draco has just been throwing at him.

"Well, _if_ I woke everyone else up, and they came and found you, here, _sitting on my bed_, and me _naked_, they might draw some erroneous conclusions about _my_ sexuality."

"Naked?" Harry asks, unnerved. "You're naked?" He studies Draco's exposed torso with fascinated disgust, then looks keenly at the duvet covering his lower half. "Why the hell d'you sleep _naked_?"

"It's hot, Potter." Draco snaps back angrily. "Deal with it."

"It may be hot, but there's no need to take your boxers off," Harry scoffs disparagingly. Then a thought occurs to him. "Well… that's assuming you –_gays_- wear boxer shorts at all. You might wear… briefs. Or thongs. Or nothing at all. I wouldn't know."

"Oh, of course, because _all_ homosexuals go commando _all_ the time," Draco sneers. He pauses, and runs his tongue over his lower lip. "I wear boxers, thank you very much. Silk ones."

"I didn't ask for a detailed description of your underwear, Malfoy."

There is another pause. Draco looks up at the ceiling in mock despair. The moonlight outside is casting ghostly shadows on the walls. Harry sighs heavily from his seat at the edge of the bed, and runs a hand through his tousled black hair, messing it up even more. Draco asks the question he still doesn't know the answer to, even after an exhaustive bout of verbal duelling.

"What are you _doing_ here?"

"Trying to think of what to do."

"Oh, just eff off," Draco snarls. "You've more than avenged Weasley just by _being_ here. You're just that annoying."

"Oh, shut up."

There is silence for a minute or two. Harry fingers the wand in his pocket ruminatively. He takes it out, stares at it for a couple of seconds, but then decides not to use it. Harry lies back on the comfortable duvet, disgruntled. Draco makes an indignant noise from the head of the bed.

"Do you _normally_ do the thinking in your little clique? Isn't that the Mudblood's forte?"

"I _said_, shut the fuck up or I'll hex you into oblivion."

"Sure, that plan worked so well the _first_ time," Draco mocks, but he falls silent anyway. He watches Harry lying at his feet, contemplating his options.

_Is Potty for real?_ Draco wonders in amazement. Soon afterwards, obviously having reached some sort of conclusion, Harry rolls over to face Draco and opens his mouth uncertainly.

"Look. Malfoy. Would you… be willing to just _let_ me _Furnuculus_ you? I could reverse it as soon as I'd done it; it's just the actual avenging that counts."

_Evidently so._

"Potter, what the fuck?"

"Fine, _be_ like that, you twat," Harry scowls. "I was just trying to find a good solution to this _problem_."

"You want a good solution to the problem?" Draco exclaims loudly, forgetting the need for quiet. "Go up to the roof of the Astronomy Tower, take a good look over the edge, and then _fall off_!"

Goyle sits up in his four-poster abruptly. Draco freezes. Harry freezes. Goyle looks around him, his dull eyes staring wildly.

"What is it? Where am I?" Goyle asks sleepily, flailing around in his covers. The rest of the dormitory is silent.

"You're in bed, Goyle," Draco hisses from behind gritted teeth. "You should be asleep."

"Bed?" Goyle murmurs questioningly, sinking back down into sleep. "Not… not skinny-dipping with Grindylows, then? Bed?"

"Yes, Goyle. Bed." Draco closes his eyes wearily. Goyle is soon slumbering again, and begins to make little contented snuffling sounds. After a full three minutes of not breathing, Harry allows himself to laugh softly.

"Ron does that sometimes," he comments.

Draco scowls, not bothering to ask whether Harry means that Weasley talks nonsense in his sleep from time to time, or that Weasley occasionally reveals himself indecently to magical creatures. He suspects it is the latter, though. Stupid ginger git.

"Are you _really_ not going to leave?" Draco asks after a while. "_Really_ really?" Harry does not respond. Draco peers at Harry in the darkness, and realises that he's fallen asleep. He kicks out at Harry's head savagely.

"Ow! Fuck! Malfoy, what the hell are you _doing_?"

"Waking you up," Draco sniffs primly. He was only trying to _help_, after all.

"I think better with my eyes closed, you git. Don't _attack_ me like that again."

"I won't," Draco promises earnestly. When Harry closes his eyes for the second time, he swings his foot back and delivers a skull-crushing blow to the back of Harry's head.

Harry's muffled curses and threats are _most_ satisfying.


	2. Avenging Ron: Part Two

**Part Two**

"You know, Hermione thinks you fancy her," Harry remarks. He is sitting cross-legged at the base of Draco's huge four-poster bed. Draco is sitting directly opposite him, picking dirt out of his fingernails. At Harry's revelation, Draco's face contorts itself into an expression of deep disgust.

"_Why_, for fuck's sake?"

"Because... well. You're always putting her down, and sniping at her, and calling her names. She thinks it's a cover-up for how much you actually like her." Harry gives Draco a funny look over his glasses. "Is it?"

"Potter, the Weasel and I don't share pulling techniques. If I fancied Granger, which I _don't_, I wouldn't call her an overweight Mudblood bint. I'm more _subtle_ than that."

Harry is silent.

"The trouble with you Gryffindors," Draco continues emphatically, "is that you think everyone's secretly _nice_. Or you think that there always has to be a _reason_ for everyone else's bad behaviour. If they don't kiss the ground you walk on, and slap on a huge fake smile when you enter a room, then they can't just _dislike_ you, there has to be something _else_. What you don't understand is that some of us just _aren't nice people_."

Harry looks hard at Draco. Draco is really worked up, his pale cheeks are tinged with pink and his fists are clenched at his sides. It would almost be funny if he wasn't so serious. Draco stares back at Harry with anger in his grey eyes.

"You know, I always thought your eyes were blue," Harry says suddenly. "Or at least greyish-blue. But they're not. They're just grey."

This odd statement confuses Draco, who looks slightly taken aback.

"Yes, well." He licks his lips nervously. "Nice people have blue eyes. Babies have blue eyes. I'm not fucking _nice_."

"No Draco, you aren't."

Draco blinks. His grey eyes are astonished.

"What did you just call me?"

Harry blinks in confusion.

"Um. What?"

"Don't fucking call me Draco," Draco sneers, pulling up the duvet over his chest. "I don't like you, remember?"

"Well," Harry scowls, crawling closer to Draco on all fours, "It's a good job I'm not exactly partial to you either, _Draco_."

"Push off, Harry."

Harry blinks in surprise. It's weirder than he expected it to be. This is the boy he's hated for the past six years, and who he's certain loathes him back just as much, if not more. They've traded insults, gotten each other into trouble, put down each other's mothers… Draco thinks Ron is a blithering idiot and Hermione a swotty, frigid bitch, whereas Harry thinks Crabbe and Goyle are… _well_. The original missing link. It's just so _unnerving_ to hear the familiar clipped voice uttering his name. He tries not to show it, though.

"Doesn't bother me." Draco leans closer.

"_Harry_," he intones softly.

"I don't have a problem with people saying my name," Harry answers, trying to sound off-hand. He edges nearer Draco, watching the blond boy's face for any sign of a reaction. "Do _you_, Draco?"

"Harry," Draco replies, his eyes flashing evilly.

"Draco."

"Harry."

"Draco."

"Harry."

There is a long, pregnant pause. Harry moves so that Draco's face is mere centimetres from his own.

"Draco."

Draco kisses him.

Harry's first instinct is to pull away, roll sideways off the bed and _Crucio_ Draco so hard that the _Slytherin git_ won't know what hit him. But instead of pulling away in outrage and yanking his wand out of his pocket to execute the Unforgivable Curse, Harry seems to be returning the kiss, pressing his lips to Draco's hungrily and nudging his glasses askew.

_Don't just sit there, do something! Say something!_ Harry's brain screams at him in terror. _Tell him he's disgusting, tell him never to come near you again!_

Harry opens his mouth awkwardly, but only a low moan escapes his lips. Draco takes this opportunity to slip his pointed tongue into Harry's mouth. Harry shivers with pleasure. Draco tastes slightly metallic, different from Cho. Different from anything he's ever tasted before, really. One of Draco's hands slips inside Harry's shirt, caressing the warmth of his stomach. His other hand is resting in the small of Harry's back, pulling him deeper into the kiss. Not caring that Draco's erection is pressing ominously into his thigh, Harry wraps his fingers around the nape of Draco's neck and buries his nails in the silky white-blond hair.

Draco pulls away forcefully and abruptly. Harry looks at him, his glasses slipping of his right ear and sliding down his face.

"Don't touch my hair."

Harry lets his gaze travel upwards to Draco's hair. It _is_, admittedly, a bit mad. There are tufty bits sticking up in all the wrong places and the left side looks like it's been brushed backwards vigorously. It's a bit like Harry's usual do, actually.

"Why?" Harry asks. Draco shrugs uncomfortably.

Draco doesn't like people playing with his hair. It's too casually intimate. It's too personal. Draco makes a point of avoiding personal, intimate contact with anyone. It reminds him of his father, placing his gloved hand on his head, whispering to him in that painfully cold voice of his. It felt like Lucius was pressing right down into his skull.

"So… how about if I just _don't_ play with your hair?" Harry suggests, grinning playfully. He leans in for a second kiss, but Draco gathers the duvet around his crotch and moves away.

"No. I think you should go, Potter."

Harry looks hurt and shocked. His bottle-green eyes are full of disappointment. Draco berates himself inwardly, but keeps a stony face. After all, what did Potter _expect_?

"Yeah, I think I should go too," Harry says in a small voice, righting his glasses. He clambers off the bed, ungainly, embarrassed. Suddenly the relationship between them is awful and strange and different. Draco wants desperately wants to restore the normality, to be back on familiar ground.

"Even though you didn't avenge Ron." This comes out wrong. It's meant as a kind of joke, to relieve the tension. Instead it sounds like Draco's mocking him, sneering at his incompetence.

"Oh, I'll avenge Ron, don't worry." Harry sounds bitter already. Draco winces.

"I'm sure you will." Again, a stupid thing to say. A _very_ stupid thing to say. Draco looks down at his fingernails in consternation. Harry turns to go.

"Wait!" Draco says a little too shrilly. Harry whips around, wide-eyed. "Um. Wait." Draco repeats, quieter.

"What _is_ it?"

Draco wants to tell something important to Harry, something that he doesn't want to bury inside him, something that he feels Potter should _know_. But he doesn't. Instead he says what Potter expects him to say.

"If you ever tell _anyone_ about this, I promise you my father will get you expelled. The Weasel and the Mudblood too. I'll dedicate every _waking moment_ to ensuring that Dumbledore and Hagrid are sacked. Potter, if you blab, I will ruin your life, I _swear_."

Harry stares at Draco with contempt.

"You were right, Malfoy. Some people just _aren't_ nice. Some people are _despicable_." Harry nearly spits the last word. "And congratulations. You're one of them."

Draco doesn't say anything to this. He can't, because it's true. All of it. The dark-haired boy turns away again, picks up the Invisibility Cloak from the carpet, and goes left, fumbling in the darkness.

_That's the wrong way to the door,_ A tiny voice in Draco's head pipes up. _You have to go right…_

Harry stumbles over piles of dirty Quidditch gear and schoolbags, until he reaches the left side of the dormitory. He begins to paw the wall, searching for an exit. He knocks one of Crabbe's sweaters off a table and stoops down to pick it up.

_That's the_ wrong_ way,_ Draco yells silently._ You have to go right, you idiot._

"Oh, bugger. _Lumos_." After staring at the blank wall for a bit in puzzlement, Harry turns on Draco angrily, who is watching him from the bed. "Would you mind telling me what you've done with the door?"

_Christ, he's dense_, Draco thinks. _That curse to the head did more than disfigure him._

"It's on the other side," Draco whispers impatiently. "Why the hell would I want to keep you here? Now get the fuck out."

"With pleasure." Harry extinguishes his wand and slips the Invisibility Cloak over his shoulders. "You're a crap kisser," he adds, as an afterthought.

"_I'm_ a crap kisser?" Draco retorts indignantly. He peers into the darkness, but of course Harry can't be seen. The bedroom door is wide open, and there's no way of telling if he's left. "If you're still here, Potter, then you should know after that performance I'd rather snog _Weasley_ than you. Even with the tiny dick."

There is no answer. Goyle snuffles from the bed next to him, and Draco has the horrible feeling he's talking to thin air. He lies back down, pulling the sheets over his bare chest. He's terribly cold all of a sudden. Perhaps he should go and put on some pyjamas.

_But Harry could still be here,_ he thinks uneasily. _Ogling me under that Cloak, the stupid Gryffindor poofter. I wonder how long he's fancied me for?_ Draco chooses to conveniently ignore the fact that _he_ kissed Harry. He begins to fabricate a reassuring story in which Harry snuck into the Slytherin quaters with the sole purpose of molesting him. It's not that far from the truth, really. Draco's right hand slides down to grip his cock comfortingly. Then a thought strikes him. _Maybe Harry's wanking off thinking of me!_

Harry sits on the staircase outside the dormitory, brushing away angry tears. He's never felt so furious at Draco in his life. This is worse than the time Draco mocked him about being in _Witch Weekly_, worse than the time he tried to get Buckbeak killed, worse than the time he spread the rumour that Harry and Professor Hooch were having an illicit affair. Harry's heart is crashing away at his ribs, and he has to stop himself from jumping up and running back in the room to pummel him.

_Snot-nosed wanker,_ Harry rages. _How dare he do that to me… the little… I'm_ glad_ I got away from him_…

Harry bursts into tears.

* * *

The next day, Ron comes to talk to Harry at breakfast, restored and rested from his stay in the hospital wing.

"We've got to do something about Malfoy, mate," he whispers urgently. "You have _no idea_ what Pomfrey put me through… all the _questions_ she asked, the _measurements_ she took... Malfoy must die. Seriously. It's not even that he... oh _look_, it's him now."

Harry glances across the room and glimpses Malfoy entering the Great Hall, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle on either side. He ducks down in his seat, heart pounding.

"Why are you hiding behind your pancakes?" Ron asks, bemused. He wrinkles up his freckled nose in confusion. "He won't hex _yours_, you know… he only got me because he caught me getting changed after Quidditch."

Harry shakes his head frantically, and tries to disappear underneath the table. Ron frowns, perplexed, and turns back to look at Draco.

"Well, that's unusual." Ron remarks, picking up one of Harry's pancakes and biting into it with gusto.

"What's unusual?" Harry asks from the floor. It's surprisingly comfortable down there, he notices. His hair brushes the underside of the table and gets caught in something sticky. Grimacing, he yanks his head away and puts up a tentative hand to feel what it is. Damn. Gum.

"Well, other than your behaviour… Malfoy's hair. It's insane." Ron wipes some strawberry jam off his chin with his sleeve and beams hopefully at Hermione, who is chatting animatedly with Lavender across the table. She ignores him.

Harry raises himself up on his chair to get a good look at the Slytherin table. Ron's right, Draco's hair is insane. For Draco, anyway. _He's_ not one to talk, with a wad of pink _Droobles Best Blowing Gum_ stuck on his head. But Draco's hair certainly is... _different_. It's not the perfectly groomed, not-a-hair-out-of-place style that's usually favoured by the Malfoys. It's a tousled mop of blonde hair, a look that could easily be achieved by being dragged backwards through a hedge. Pansy and the other Slytherin girls don't seem to mind, though. They're all cooing at him, hanging on his every word.

"Don't know where he gets off doing scruffy chic," Ron grumbles, his mouth full. "That's our speciality, isn't it Harry? Harry?"

Harry is not listening, and has turned a particularly fetching shade of beetroot. Draco is staring at him from the Slytherin table. Pansy is waving a butter knife madly in the air, prattling on about something or other, but Draco's not paying any attention to her at all. He's staring straight at _Harry_. Harry, who has a crazed look on his face and bubble gum on his head. Harry, who has turned the exact same shade of scarlet as his new Quidditch robes.

"Harry!" Ron exclaims indignantly. "Harry, are you even listening to me?"

Harry drags his eyes away from Draco reluctantly. Ron looks highly offended, and gives him a not-so-friendly punch on the arm.

"I don't know what you're acting so funny about, mate. Can we please concentrate on the problem at hand? MALFOY. Our nemesis? He's a twat. We've got to get him back."

Harry's attention is slipping again. He tries to use his peripheral vision to check whether Draco is still staring at him, but Ron pushes his head back towards him. Harry can feel Draco's gaze boring into his back.

"Harry! Look, stop all this nonsense. We've got to concentrate on Malfoy. You've got to get him back for me. You've got to _avenge_ me, Harry, alright? That's what you've got to do. _Avenge_ me."

**The End**  



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